etiring to the
sea-wall forty yards away, they sat down and fell into polite
conversation. As they left her, the Honourable John Ruffin's last
words to Pollyooly were:

"I don't forbid you to scratch him. Scratching is harmonious with the
female nature."

The statement afforded Mrs. Gibson grounds for the beginning of their
polite conversation.

Pollyooly and the Lump worked steadily away at the building of the
castle. Pollyooly did the digging; now and again the Lump would pat a
wall placidly. They had been at work for rather more than half an
hour; and the castle was already beginning to wear the rotund air so
dear to the eye of the builder when the progressive prince came in
sight.

Pollyooly's joyful heart began to beat quickly. He was slouching along
to his doom nearly fifty yards in front of the fragrant baron; and
since there were children to annoy all the way, he came but slowly. It
gave Pollyooly time to lead the Lump half-way to Mrs. Gibson, and send
him toddling the rest. She was back at her castle, and at work again
when the prince caught sight of her.

He stopped short, his unhasty mind slowly taking in the situation.
That she should be working in loneliness, thirty yards beyond the line
of nurses and children along the beach, seemed too good to be true.
Presently his unhurrying mind grasped the fact that it was true; his
heart blazed in his bosom; he threw back his head and, had his nose
been larger, he would have sniffed the breeze like a warhorse. He
advanced upon her in a quick, shambling slouch.

Pollyooly saw his eager advance; but she affected not to see it. She
was eager for the fray, but fearful lest a display of that eagerness
should dash the royal courage; moreover she wished the prince to be
flagrantly the aggressor. She worked at the farther wall of the castle
with her back to him. A fray was the last thing the prince looked for.
There had been but one fray in his sheltered life: with a brother
prince carelessly admitted to his society. A fray with a child not of
the blood royal was beyond dreaming. He sprang on to the castle wall
and began to stamp and kick a breach in it with furious, but clumsy,
energy.

Then Pollyooly turned and sprang. The prince was hardly aware of her
spring; he was only aware of a stinging smack, and then the shock of
her impetus toppled him over on to his back on the sand. Pollyooly
came down too, but not on the sand; she came down on the princ